Morning Fizz: State Rep. Matt Shea's Fight for Freedom

1. Expecting 70,000 new households and 115,000 new jobs in the next 20 years (compared to 59,000 new households and 56,000 new jobs during the last 20 years), the Seattle Department of Planning and Development held a scoping meeting for updates to the city's comprehensive plan last night where they outlined three options for dealing with growth.

The three options: A) Directing growth, as we've done during the last 20 years, to "urban villages" such as Columbia City, Lake City, and Fremont—only this time more of the jobs would also be located in the villages and we'd rely on mixed-use developments four-to-six stories tall; B) directing most growth—more so than during the past 20 years—to "urban centers" such as downtown, Capitol Hill, South Lake Union, and the U District with more six-story buildings; and C) Using a "transit oriented development" approach, expanding the urban village boundaries around the light rail line near Rainier Valley, Capitol Hill, the U District, Roosevelt, and Northgate and concentrating development there.

Erica was there and judging from her tweets, the people who showed up to testify didn't like any of these approaches and instead, argued that we should limit growth altogether.

“Uber remains focused on connecting people with the safest and most reliable transportation options in Seattle and protecting the thousands of small business jobs created by our technology platform. It is unfortunate that the taxi industry is not similarly focused on what really matters: safety of riders and opportunity for drivers.”

In a video that declares "Wake Up Washington," Rep. Shea, who has sponsored bills to undo Obamacare, to increase access to guns, and to institute parental notification for abortions, lays out his vision so he can see a "God-honoring constitutional republic .... and a God-honoring state of Washington restored."

The vision has something to do with cutting welfare and food stamps, "a well-armed people," and returning to a gold and silver standard against "paper and fiat printing by the Federal Reserve."